Friday, 22 July 2011

Jonny, The Borderline, 27/06/11

I was at The Borderline last month to see Jonny (for the second time after seeing them at Water Rats in January). Tonight they played as a full band as opposed to earlier in the year when it was just Euros and Norman. The slightly nervous performance of the show at Water Rats had been replaced by a much more assured set this time.

I had listened to the album a fair bit in the run up to this show and love how the songs can generally be divided as Euros songs and Norman songs each bringing their own distinctive qualities to the sound. Both were on fine form throughout. Played live, many of the songs sounded even more Beatlesy and 60s inspired.

Norman introduced Waiting Around For You as being "our Revolver song done in the style of Chas & Dave”. The Goodnight saw them sound quite close to Pentangle and Cave Dance finished with a saxophone/flute outro (sadly not quite as good as the heavy pyschedelic keyboard wig-out played at Water Rats). Continental could be more Beach Boys if it arrived in the venue on a surfboar, while Candyfloss has already established itself as a power-pop classic.

For the encore they came back on to play Ursula's Crow, When I Still Have Thee and Heywood Lane. Lovely to hear a different Teenage Fanclub song and even better to hear an old Gorky's Zygotic Mynci song (on earlier shows it seems they played Spanish Dance Troupe).